Driver:  My friends say I will one day have an accident because I drive my sports car recklessly. But I have done som...

Jacob-R on November 24, 2018

I’m happy to help. Let’s take a look at why answer D is wrong.

We know we are looking for the answer that shows why the reasoning in the argument is vulnerable to criticism. In order to find that answer, we need to understand the argument.

Premise one: friends say I will have accident because I drive my sports car recklessly.

Premise two: minivans and larger sedans have very low accident rates compared to sports cars.

Conclusion: trading sports care for minivan would lower my risk of accident.

Immediately you should spot the flaw: why does the driver think it is the sports car, rather than his reckless driving, that will cause an accident? And thus if he trades in the sports car, we don’t know if his reckless driving will still cause his risk of accident to be the same, even if minivans in general have lower accident rates (perhaps for other reasons — i.e., minivan drivers on average not driving as recklessly!)

Answer D is wrong because the mistake is not that minivans and larger sedans are a sufficient condition for having lower accident rates. Instead, the problem is the argument’s interpretation of the relationship between minivans and accident rates: that having the minivan CAUSES the risk to be reduced, rather than being CORRELATED with the lower risk (for totally separate reasons, as we noted before.)

I hope that helps! Please let us know if you have further questions.

Curator on February 27, 2020

I disagree. He mistakenly thinks that driving his sports car recklessly is the necessary condition that will result in him having an accident. He then makes a partial alteration so that the necessary condition is no longer met thereby avoiding the unwanted outcome. But driving his sports car recklessly was merely a condition sufficient for resulting in an accident. What he really needed to change was his driving.